An Anniversary

January 31 is a bittersweet day for me. An anniversary of something I wish had never happened. A day I’d like to erase all memories of. The day I was diagnosed with breast cancer. A day that now marks my milestones in cancer survivorship. Today I am a seven-year survivor of breast cancer.

I remember the exact moment I heard the words.  I was a teacher at the time.  It was a snow day. I was sitting at my kitchen counter eating a healthy breakfast of a chia seed berry smoothie bowl. I had undergone a biopsy of a suspicious 9-centimeter region that showed up on my yearly breast MRI a few days before. My mammogram 6 months earlier had shown nothing suspicious, however having dense breasts made the reading of the films quite challenging. I was being screened every 6 months (alternating mammograms and MRIs) because of certain risk factors (previous biopsies, dense breasts, late childbearing, early first period) and I was also given a physical breast exam by a surgical oncologist every six months.  The idea was that if anything ever did show up, we would catch it when it was tiny. 

So there I was, starting to eat my smoothie bowl when the call came.  It was my surgical oncologist. She told me to come down to her office and bring someone. I replied that I was on my way, but if it was bad news I’d like to hear it now. “It’s invasive lobular carcinoma. I can’t believe it,” she said. She sounded dumbfounded. A 9-centimeter cancerous mass. In case you haven’t figured it out, that is enormous in the world of breast cancers. Scarily huge. How could it have evaded detection all this time? I was soon to learn that lobular breast cancer is a sneaky son of a bitch. It doesn’t form nice, round tumors like its cousin, ductal carcinoma.  Lobular carcinoma forms flat sheets of cells, then slowly builds upon those sheets. A lobular carcinoma tumor can live quite a while in lumpy, dense breasts without raising any particular red flags. It often can’t be seen on mammograms, and in my experience  can also evade detection by MRI.  

I got up and dumped my smoothie bowl in the sink. I had lost my appetite, and would have no appetite for literally about a year and a half (I don’t recommend this particular diet).

Ten months of treatment ensued, beginning with 8 rounds of chemotherapy.  After my chemotherapy I had a repeat breast MRI.  The results came in – no evidence of cancer.  My medical oncologist was beaming. “I love when this happens,” she said. At her urging, I opted for a lumpectomy instead of the bilateral mastectomy I was leaning toward. 

The pathology of the lumpectomy showed continued presence of lobular carcinoma cells, and no clean margins.

“That lobular cancer is sneaky,” I heard for the fifth, or sixth, or twentieth time. I had lost track.

Bilateral mastectomy and 30 radiation treatments came next, and then I was declared to be in remission. My hair was growing back. I was slowly gaining weight. But I was so used to being tricked by that bastard lobular cancer that I couldn’t believe that the cancer wasn’t still lurking in my lungs. Or brain. Or spine. It took me an entire year to realize that it didn’t matter if it was still lurking. What mattered is that I had limited time here on earth. That I had always had limited time here. That these were the golden days – days when I was healthy enough to do anything I wanted to do. Time was a-wasting and I needed to get busy living my life.

I will never be one of those people who say that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them. No, it is the absolutely worst thing to ever happen to me. But there were powerful lessons learned. Lessons I don’t know if I would have ever learned without some sort of comparable crisis. And those lessons were:

1. Life is short. Get busy living. NOW. I mean it! What are you still doing here reading this?
2. Love is all that matters.
3. None of us knows what is around the next bend in our lives. It could be something incredibly good, or heartbreakingly bad. The only thing we can be sure of is what is happening in this very moment. If this moment is mundane, or boring, or full of everyday frustrations – well, put that in the “win” column. I try not to get too caught up in things that might seem important but really don’t matter one whit.

I am currently living a life of gratitude. I know that I am beyond lucky to still be here 7 years later. I have lost several friends to cancer since my diagnosis in 2014. Every anniversary, every birthday is a gift. I love love love growing older. Bring on the wrinkles and gray hair! 

When I was diagnosed, Sam was a freshman in high school and I honestly thought that I wouldn’t see him graduate high school. He’s now a senior in college, set to graduate 4 months from now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be around for that day. But a few moments ago I had a phone conversation with him, which ended, as they always end, with these words: “I love you, honey.” “I love you, Mom.”

See #2 above.

Michelle xoxo